Thank you for the feedback! It was super helpful in making these updates and in working on other designs and collections.

-------------------------2020 Updated Project-------------------

REVISED/FINAL COLLECTION

I took a break from surface design for a bit, but came back to it this spring. I revised my patterns and color palettes and am offering two different color stories. I may add a third color story that's reflective of my original ultra-bright palette as well. (I'm a huge fan of 60s/70s color palettes). This collection took FOREVER to finish because I couldn't decide on anything and I felt like the work wasn't good enough. I decided to finish it up and move on since this collection was essentially a learning experience. Here's what I ended up with. 

I also somehow omitted the butterflies from my first attempt at a swatch catalog page for both color stories, so I'll fix that. 

Midsommar Color Story

Lilac Color Story

I'd be interested in a better name for this color story if anybody has any ideas. 

Retro Color Story

I decided to play with a fun 70s-inspired retro palette. The bouquet on black is my FAVORITE in this entire series. 

 

-------------------------2019 Project-------------------------------

BACKGROUND / INSPIRATION

I'm inspired by the lush gardens in my neighborhood (seriously, they're over the top—we have an older demographic of people living here and there are garden clubs). I also love 60s/70s mod prints because of their bold colors. So I decided to work towards something that melds these.

I've been working on this pattern collection for a while and decided to take all the classes available on Skillshare about pattern collections to get as much information and input from different people as possible. I really like the way that Abby describes pattern collections and how she uses moodboards. This is what I was used to doing for graphic design moodboards, but the other classes I took talked about reference material in terms of moodboards, so that's what I have for this pattern collection. 

I know for a fact I didn't have enough motifs to start with since my hero pattern was designed for a class where I was designing one pattern. I'm trying to salvage this so it's not a one-off pattern by adding some of my old patterns and mixing motifs from each of them together. This might not work as well as I thought it would, and I'm open to developing two collections instead of trying to mash these together.

I'd love feedback on how these are going together. If the flower pattern doesn't seem to go with the others, I'm happy to go back to the drawing board and create a different hero pattern for the birdies set and create other patterns for the flower set. 

I am designing these for fabric, so I'm aiming to have 8-12 patterns overall with 1 hero, 2 secondary patterns, 3-4 supporting patterns (less exciting than the secondary), and 3-5 blender patterns. 

HERO PATTERN

Below are some of the examples of my moodboard, sketches, and progress for my hero pattern. I did this for a project for another class (here is the project for full details).

SECONDARY

This is where I'm stuck right now. I had a few false starts. These patterns are OK but they don't match the mood of what I'm going for. They also don't look like my style.  I didn't like the way these looked so I didn't end up coloring them like the hero pattern (mod / vibrant). I could try coloring them like that to see if that would help, but I don't really like this style. 

This is a background for a moth print that I'm working on. I can't get my moths to look the way that I want them to look, so they're not currently on this background. I think this could work if I get the moths to look the way I want them to look. Right now they're too vector-y and the rest of my stuff has a hand-drawn feel.

I tried doing a block print of a bouquet from my hero as one of my secondary patterns. I really like the white space in this print, but it doesn't seem to me like it goes with the collection. Maybe I'm wrong... or maybe once I get some more of the patterns put together this will work. This is going to be a half-drop repeat. 

I'm also working on a paisley pattern (not going to be in black and white—I design in black and white first to make sure contrast works). This is created from the bird body shapes and I'm using the lacy bits and potentially the leaves from the flowers to make the paisley. 

SUPPORTING

I'm remixing one of my old patterns for this collection. The first image of my birds is the original pattern I did back in 2011. 

I bumped up the weight of the stroke so it would stand on its own, smoothed the bird bodies, transformed their bodies, beaks, and feet (separately) so that the birds looked different from each other to create some visual interest, and colored the birdies differently. 

This is the one I think goes best with the flower pattern above because of the blues and oranges. 

BLENDERS

This pattern is stuck between a supporting pattern and a blender. If I use one of the options that has less contrast then it's definitely a blender. I'm going to see where I end up needing this pattern. I designed this by placing two of my birds back to back to create an abstract floral-like shape. These are much smaller than the screenshot (hence the pixelization—2x2") so they won't overpower the supporting patterns. The lines are illustrator viewing errors and do not actually exist. 

This pattern is definitely a blender. I used some of the lacy dots from the floral pattern to make this pattern. I could kick down the contrast a bit if needed, but these are the colorways I currently like. Again, this pattern is a little smaller than shown. Not sure why the one screenshot really nicely and the other didn't.

SPOT GRAPHICS

I need to work on this yet, but my birds and probably some of the flowers will become spot graphics. 

ALL TOGETHER

Here's a preview of what these look like together. This is why I don't think that bouquet pattern is working. 

ADJUSTMENTS/ADDITIONS

I made some adjustments and additions to this collection based on Abby's feedback. I also started reading a fabric design book that has been helping me make some design decisions. I included a geometric triangle pattern based on the bird beaks. This is meant to be more of a tonal print. I also flipped the bouquet arrangement in a few different directions to add some visual interest to the yellow bouquet pattern. The blue swatch in the bottom right is just a placeholder. I may use orange instead of blue for the next pattern I add, which will be another blender. I also think I want to include one more secondary or supporting pattern. Or maybe one of each? I will also need to adjust my final swatch layout once I have all the patterns in this collection finished. 

I would love any feedback that you have. Thank you!